Life is cheap!

[nerfman]

A few points here:

1) While maybe not completely realistic, I think the rates of growth allow for noticable expansion during the game while still requiring a player to defend his population base.

2) The amount of people that can be fit into cargo is a bit crazy though. When I can get the entire population of Texas into a single transport ship I think things are getting a bit kooky. I would like to be able to change the amount of people that can be placed on a ship.

3) On a similiar note, I think that colony ships are too easy to build early in the game. Maybe its just my old MOOII days, but starting another major colony should require a little more effort.

4) What would be really cool is if population increase was based on a Malthus curve. Basically it exponentially approached zero at either end of the extreme (no population or max). This makes sense because there is very low birth rates in either case. In the middle region, growth would be at a maximum. This would make population growth a function of current capacity and would require players to try and balance populations out so that they have more "elbow room." Planets that are around 50% full would have the highest growth. Of course the actual rate would be modified by the racial and planet modifiers. In the end though, the player who manages their colonization efforts will get the best growth which makes more sense.